Chapter IV — Industrial Arts
§ I Ceramics
The causes which impeded the development of pottery in primitive Chaldæa had the same unhappy influence on Assyrian pottery and on Chaldæan pottery in the age of Nebuchadnezzar. Though a few terra-cottas are fashioned with a certain elegance and present graceful features, their walls are always extremely thick, on account of the friable nature of the clay, and the types created by the modeller are totally wanting in variety. Botta found under the pavement of the courtyards at Khorsabad little cavities containing, besides cylinders and other amulets, terra-cotta statuettes of talismanic character, intended to conjure and drive away the infernal powers. “These statuettes,” says M. Heuzey, “are designed with a remarkably sure hand, in grey clay, which is almost crude, and pitted with small holes, as if it had been mixed with chopped straw or hay, according to the process followed in the manufacture of bricks.”43 The example which we reproduce represents the hero Izdubar, so often drawn upon the bas-reliefs and cylinders as he is here, that is to say, with curled beard and long hair in ringlets. His countenance is expressive, and shows signs of careful work. The same praise must be given to the head of a fantastic animal, also found at Khorsabad (fig. 91); this head, in whitish clay, is covered with a glaze of a fine bluish green, resembling, and perhaps imitated from, Egyptian pottery; a similar figure of a monster roaring at winged genii appears among the bronze monuments; in both cases the art is realistic, and has rendered ugliness and ferocity with all the force of ideal expression.
The terra-cotta vases discovered during the excavations in Assyria no doubt denote a real progress when compared with Chaldæan ceramics; but they are still nothing but heavy amphoræ, with or without handles, with a more or less elongated neck and a more or less broadened body, and they could never be compared to any but the most archaic productions of Greece. They are sometimes decorated with brown or yellowish paintings, or with designs in relief, representing floral scrolls, geometrical lines or diapers, but never with anything that reflects the beauty of the Ninevite sculptures. Among them all there are no vases which formed part of the luxuries of a refined civilisation, as the Greek vases did; neither in Assyria nor in Chaldæa have any clay vessels been discovered except vulgar jars and pots. This is, perhaps, the place to notice fragments of two small circular vases of steatite or soapstone discovered at Nimroud and Sherif Khan, near Kouyunjik. They are probably of the age of the Sargonids, and are dedicated to certain deities. The thin walls give these vessels almost the appearance of porcelain, of which Layard supposed them to be, and the figures carved upon them in relief, give them an artistic character which the Assyrians could never impart to their pottery. One of the fragments is engraved by Layard.44
At Babylon, whither the seat of government was transferred after the fall of Nineveh, the modellers seem to have made a great artistic effort. Mr. Rassam obtained from the ruins of the southern capital a small terra-cotta tablet, 1¾ in. by 2¾ in., on which the figure of a boar, such as lived among the reeds and marshes of Mesopotamia, is modelled in relief. The forms of the animal are here reproduced with all the excellence of the later Assyrian artists, by Azaru, of the tribe Esaggilai (doubtless connected with the great Chaldæan Temple), whose name inscribed on the back adds to the interest of the little work. Solid figurines have been found in Chaldæa, like those in Assyria, moulded on one side only in greenish clay, forming remarkable examples of Babylonian art. The chronological position of these figurines is, however, difficult to determine, but they seem to us to be, perhaps, contemporary with Nebuchadnezzar. They represent priests or gods, standing upright in their long robes, with their hands clasped in the attitude of respect; women dressed in fringed garments, carrying a vase upon their breast; nude goddesses, standing upright, and suckling the divine child. One of these last (fig. 93) is, says M. Heuzey, “A purely Asiatic type, the rather full forms of which are modelled with charming truth and rare delicacy; I do not fear to describe it as a little wonder of its kind.”45 Another and commoner example is the goddess Istar, nude and holding her hands against her breasts, adorned with bracelets and necklaces, with her hair elaborately dressed: this naturalism and immodest freedom in the representation of Istar form a contrast with the ordinary habit of Chaldæo-Assyrian art. This series of figurines is chronologically terminated by the statuettes of the Achæmenid or Parthian epoch, modelled of the same clay, but showing all the characteristics of decadence. The forms are less carefully studied; sometimes Istar, the goddess of Erech, is represented in these figurines of terra-cotta or alabaster, half-reclining on a banqueting couch, like that described by Herodotus in the temple of Bel-Marduk at Babylon; her head is often crowned with the crescent, her proper symbol, in the centre of which a garnet or other sparkling stone is set. In short, these coarse images of the voluptuous goddess condemn at once the art and the manners of the people who produced them.